Little girl’s body discovered in shack

Crime & Courts / 16 January 2013, 09:06am

Natasha Prince

902
A crime scene expert takes pictures of the scene on 7th street in Linden where 3 men tried to hijack a woman after a chase with the police that started in Robindale.
190208. Picture: Bongiwe Mchunu

Cape Town - A badly decomposed body of a little girl was discovered under a duvet in a shack in Green Point, Khayelitsha, when the home owner returned from her holiday in the Eastern Cape.

The girl has not yet been identified, but it is believed to be the body of five-year-old Lilitha Mqwebi, who has been missing since Christmas Day.

Provincial police spokesman Captain Frederick van Wyk said that police were called to the scene after the shack owner had made the “gruesome discovery” early in the afternoon.

The owner of the house returned from the Eastern Cape and found the locks had been changed.

“She forced her way through the door and found a badly decomposed body of a child laying under a duvet,” van Wyk said.

A man - a friend of the shack owner - who had been looking after the house for the owner while she was on holiday, was not home at the time.

While there has been no official confirmation as to the identity of the body found, Lilitha’s relatives, including her mother, visited the scene and identified some of the clothing on the body as hers. Lilitha was last seen at her parents’ home in Green Point settlement in Khayelitsha.

She had gone to play with her friends on a piece of land near Lansdowne Road when she disappeared. She had been wearing pink trousers and a long-sleeved pink and white striped shirt when she left home.

Van Wyk said: “It cannot be confirmed but it is believed to be the body of the little girl who went missing during December in Green Point Khayelitsha.”